So it was that Osama Bin Laden put an end to my round the world trip hopes, I was in Melbourne, Australia with tickets to fly to Hawaii but the US Government had closed off all the air space and cancelled all flights into the US. Luckily, from a dosh point of view, I was insured so I got the money back that I’d paid out on booking flights and hotels, not til after I was back in the UK mind you.
By this time, I’d pretty much had enough of travelling and booked the first decent flight home I could, leaving 14th September, refueling in Singapore and Dubai as usual. What made the flight different was that I was almost the only person on it, OBL had certainly succeeded in making the west pretty nervous about getting on a plane, not me though, I just wanted to get home and was happy with the risks involved.
The flights were great, quiet, empty Jumbo Jets almost to myself. I stayed awake on the night flight from Dubai to London because the plane was dodging left and right aparently following a flight plan that took us no where near any piece of land that someone could launch a ground to air misile from. The plane banked left and right all night and I was transfixed to the window looking out at all the little dots of lights that represented settlements in the desert below, any one of them could be hostile, that’s just the way I was thinking after what had happened 3 days earlier. This is the new world where no one was safe, seemed like fun at the time too.
I landed in Heathrow with my obligatory digerydoo (or however it’s meant to be spelt!) after a trip to Oz, hailed a cab and said “Stroud please mate!” to which the cabby looked at me and said, “That’s going to be expensive!” but I explained, there was no one else to go to at the time but my parents house, I wasn’t sure who was staying in my house in Cardiff at the time.
2 hours later, we pulled up in front of my parents house in Minchenhampton, Stroud, I payed by card as the bill was something silly like £200 or clode, then got out and was greeted by two very happy parents, who says stories don’t have happy endings, I was spoilt rotten by them as always and for that I thank them, it was just what this weary traveller needed!